A national consultation is being held by the Ministry of Education Sports and Culture (M.E.S.C.) as part of preparation for the Transforming Education Summit 2022 in New York next month. 

The summit in the U.S. looks to shed light on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) for education which is a global target for development set in 2015 and should be achieved by 2030.

Samoa is one of the many countries that have agreed to working towards achieving these goals. There are 17 goals and SDG 4 looks at the quality of education with 10 targets and 11 indicators which directly works toward achieving quality education.

The Transforming Education Summit takes place in New York from 16–18 of September and coincides with the 77th General Assembly. This is a global effort lead by the UN to redesign education considering the lessons learnt during the COVID-19 pandemic, when schools were practically shut down for long periods of time. 

About 147 million children have been affected, and half the necessary time to be in school being take away, and 24 million students globally may never return to work at all.

The education system in Samoa was obviously affected as well. The conference looked at multiple objectives and the would like to make sure that the education system has the right curriculum, which provide basic skills and knowledge for people to compete in the labour market of the future and not of standard of the past. 

They also looked at the modalities of teaching considering the shortage of teachers in country where there a problems with personnel as well as considered giving teachers more opportunities to enhance their knowledge and capacity.

With the world moving there is a lot of progress that is taking place for teachers to benefit a lot if they are exposed to this. This can be achieved by working together with the Government on financing for education, and to look at the right ratio considering that the country has other challenges as well.

As a small island developing state there are a lot of things that need to be done for instance, infrastructure affected by climate change, health system, food diet system as well as the need for public investments.

 The UN Resident Coordinator for Samoa, Simona Marinescu, expressed confidence that Samoa will move to the next steps and added that she has seen how passionate the country is on the issue.

"I'm sure with the passion that Samoa puts in to everything, I need to say that after being here for more than four years, I'm very confident that we will move to the next step," said Ms. Marinescu. 

"There is great mobilization and Samoa is very clear on its needs and will get a good statement to put forward and then the UN will align with what the needs are here."

One such area, according to Ms. Marinescu, is specialized areas for children with disabilities with the Government making some progress in that area. 

There is also a disability policy where there are benefits for them while acknowledging the need to create a more inclusive services and education while being mindful of the 2030 agenda promise to not leave anyone behind.